Sagitta
Origin
Sagitta is one of the original 48 constellations of Ptolemy, and represents an arrow. There are many stories associated with Sagitta because there are many stories in which arrows are shot. These include the arrow with which Hercules slew the eagle that tormented Prometheus, the arrow of Apollo, and the arrow of Eros, more commonly known these days as Cupid.
Bright Stars
The brightest stars in Sagitta are Gamma and Delta Sagittae at magnitudes of 3.71 and 3.78 respectively.
Photo of the constellation Sagitta produced by NOIRLab in collaboration with Eckhard Slawik, a German astrophotographer.
The annotations are from a standardized set of 88 western IAU constellations and stick figures from Sky & Telescope. Please find here a non-annotated version of the image.
Credit: E. Slawik/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M. Zamani
Latin name
English name
The Arrow
Pronunciation
suh-JIT-uh
Abbreviation
Sge
Notable Objects
A notable object in Sagitta is Messier 71, a star cluster about 12,000 light-years away. Messier 71 is on the edge between being a globular cluster and an open cluster.
